by CJ Birch
She hated to admit it, but if this had happened in her day, she would’ve been right along with them. In fact, she would’ve been the instigator. Just for the thrill of something different, something that didn’t involve football or someone’s fist going through another’s face.
That someone had actually lost their life wouldn’t even factor into it. They were so far removed from the loss it could only be intoxicating. She didn’t hate them for it because she understood it, but she didn’t like them for it either.
“Robin.” The downstairs was empty. Not for the first time did she feel she’d been brought out here chasing her own tail. Just as she was about to head upstairs she heard a muffled cry. “Robin?” She followed the voice to the far corner of the living room. Several slats covering the window had been pried loose, leaving a gap for the sun to stream through. It revealed a large hole in the floor.
“Watch your step,” Robin yelled, but too late. As Elle got near the edge, the floorboard gave way and she fell through the floor.
Elle lay on her back for a full minute in absolute agony as the dust settled around her. When she opened her eyes, Robin leaned over her. “You okay?”
She didn’t say anything. Her breath was still clogged along with her voice somewhere in her chest and wouldn’t come out. Her ribs felt like someone had taken a crowbar and spread them apart. She tried to concentrate on why she was lying on a dusty cellar floor instead of the pain.
Why couldn’t she for once have listened to the doctor and stayed in bed today? She’d much rather be staring at her ceiling fan than the jagged, rotted floorboards above her.
“Shit, you don’t look so great.” Robin examined her neck. “Did you get all those scrapes from the fall?”
Elle shook her head. Finding her voice she said, “I looked like this before I fell.” She took another minute to brace herself to sit up, but in the end, she needed Robin’s help. Elle was almost in tears by the time she was standing.
“What the fuck happened to you? You look like you tried to rescue the wrong cat out of a tree.”
“You’re hilarious. I bruised my ribs the other day.”
“Doing what? Wrestling King Kong?” It had been too dark the night before for Robin to see how damaged Elle looked. In daylight, even the muted light of the basement, every scratch and cut stood stark against her pale skin.
“I’d rather not talk about it.” The sun shone through the hole and the dancing dust to illuminate a very tiny, very old cellar. “Why the hell didn’t you just tell me you’d fallen through the floor? Why all that cryptic shit about finding something that I needed to see?”
“First of all, I did find something and second, I didn’t tell you I fell through the floor because…” She brushed at her now dusty and rumpled shirt, trying without success to bring it back from the dead. “Because, well, I felt like an idiot.”
Elle wanted to point out that if she’d told her she’d fallen through a hole, she would’ve actually brought rope and backup and would’ve been more careful walking around up there. But she didn’t. Given Robin’s current state, the rumpled clothes, the cut on her forehead, she didn’t feel like making things worse. Instead she started feeling around, looking for a way out.
There was a set of stairs leading to two large doors that would’ve opened into the backyard. Robin saw her looking. “Don’t bother. I already tried. There’s something heavy blocking them.”
But Elle had to see for herself. She couldn’t admit that she was stuck in this cellar, completely unknown to her before now, with this woman, the one person she didn’t want to be confined in a small space with. Not when she looked like she’d been bathing with razor blades.
Elle braced her back against the doors and pushed. A new pain leapt out from her ribs. She took a deep breath, then tried again.
The word “stubborn” popped into Robin’s head. Elle was worse than Jason. “Good idea. Injure yourself further.”
“I left my cell phone and radio in the car. So if it helps us get out of here before we bake to death, I’ll gladly break a rib.”
“Okay, fine. Sit your ass down. Let me have another go.” Robin slipped her heels off one at a time and sat them next to each other on the step. Elle watched the muscles in her legs flex as she struggled against the doors.
Elle nudged her to the side and they both tried. But after twenty minutes, even Elle gave up. “Whatever is blocking that door is there to stay.”
Robin, sweating, breathing as if she’d just run the twenty meter dash, dropped onto the stairs and began rolling up her silk sleeves. She was back in a skirt suit, complete with killer black heels. She fluttered the front of her shirt, pushing air into the unforgiving silk.
Elle had been right. The temperature in there was unbearable. And rising.
“So what kind of time frame are we looking at here? Are we going to be rescued sometime today? Or should we start nesting?” Robin asked.
“My radio was digging into my ribs.” Elle stood flat against the wall, folding herself into what was left of the shade. “That’s why I took it off.” Thinking of her radio laying on her passenger seat made her think of the half-drunk coffee sitting in her cruiser. It would still be hot.
“As much as I’m enjoying the company, I just want to know if we’re going to get rescued before we die here.”
“Relax. Neil knows where I am. When I don’t radio in, he’ll come find me.” She didn’t mention that he was currently out looking for her brother and wouldn’t radio her before he found EJ. It could be several hours before anyone noticed she was gone.
After ten minutes of watching the sun creep farther across the floor, Elle gave up trying to stay out of the sun. She lowered herself onto a stair. “How did you get my number anyway?”
“A good magician never reveals her secrets.” Robin’s smile was all teeth.
“Are you at least going to tell me what you found?”
“Oh, yeah.” In the excitement of Elle falling through the floor, Robin had forgotten all about it. “I came out here this morning to check out the place, get a better feel for it.” Robin was tired of waiting for the investigation to get solved. She wanted answers now. She wasn’t going to share that with Elle, of course. She needed Elle on her side if she was going to get anywhere on this assignment.
“I was here about ten minutes before I fell through the floor and that’s when I found this.” She pulled out a balled-up shirt and handed it to Elle. “It was tucked under the stairs.”
Elle pulled the shirt apart. Dried blood stained the front, gluing parts of the fabric together, marring the Harley-Davidson logo on the front.
“You recognize it?”
Even if she had she wouldn’t tell Robin. “I think more people worship Harley-Davidson than God around here.” She laid the shirt next to her and checked under the stairs. It was empty except for some debris. “Didn’t happen to find a gun, did you?”
Robin shook her head. Elle sat for a few minutes scanning the basement. Her eyes traveled along the floor where the brick wall met the stone floor. She stood after a minute and walked to the far edge.
Elle dropped to her hands and knees in the far corner. “Give me a hand with this,” she said.
Robin joined her. “What do you need me to do?”
Elle pointed to a section of brick a few feet from her. “Get on that side. I’m going to need you to push from there.”
Robin grasped at the brick with both hands. Elle rolled her eyes and demonstrated what she needed Robin to do, which was kneel like she had done and get a good hand grip. There was a pause as they both looked at Robin’s attire, complete with stockings.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we waited for the others to get here?”
“What else do you have to do? It beats waiting around doing nothing.”
“Fine.” Robin raised her hands in surrender. She walked to the stairs and sat. She pulled her skirt up slightly. All Elle’s attention was on her as she unclipped first her le
ft, then the right stocking from her garter. She rolled each one down to her ankle and pulled them off in one strip. It was done slow and deliberate. The effect it was having on Elle hadn’t escaped her because she eased her legs apart ever so slightly as she unclipped each stocking.
Elle couldn’t tear her eyes away if she’d tried. If possible, it had gotten hotter in the room in the last few seconds. When the act was done, Elle ripped her eyes back to the benign brick in front of her.
Robin knelt a few feet away from her. She inched up her skirt, revealing the dangling ends of her garter.
Something deep inside Elle clenched.
“Now that you have me here.” Robin’s voice was low and playful.
Elle cleared her throat before speaking. “Um.” She looked up at the ceiling trying to gather her thoughts. “A lot of these houses were built during the Civil War. They all have hidey holes for storing valuables in case the Confederates came through.” She pointed to the floor. “You can tell by this section. It’s been moved because there’s ruts in the dust on the floor.”
They each gripped an end of the brick wall and pulled it out. It was heavy and slow, and scraped across the hard stone floor, but eventually a small section moved toward them. Inside was a room the size of a closet. Sitting in the middle of that space was a small canvas bag. Elle reached inside and lifted it. It was heavy and her heart beat a little faster at what it might contain.
Inside were twenty wrapped bundles of crisp one hundred dollar bills secured with bank seals. Elle stared, mouth agape, at the contents. She blinked a few times, then closed her mouth, holding tight. This was a lot more than the twenty-five grand she’d given Jessie. More like four times the amount.
“You weren’t expecting to find that?” Robin asked, she appeared a little more cool about the whole thing.
“There must be like a hundred grand in here. Who would expect to find that in this?” She looked up at the ceiling again. Elle opened the bag once more and sorted through it, looking for a gun or anything that might shed light on how the cash had gotten there. Nothing. There was nothing else in the cubbyhole either. What the hell was going on?
She hugged the bag to her chest and looked up at Robin. “So you were just here getting a better feel for the place? At seven in the morning?”
Robin shrugged. “So you think it’s possible someone killed Jessie for this money? Then stashed it here?”
“I’m asking the questions. What were you really doing here so early?”
“First of all, calm down. If you keep breathing like that you’re going to hyperventilate.”
Elle’s breathing had picked up. She’d give anything for a glass of water.
“Second, I think you should take a seat.”
“Oh, no.” Elle shook her head, clutching the bag harder. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“It’s nothing too heinous, I swear.” Robin guided Elle back to the steps. She let Elle keep her death grip on the money. “I wasn’t completely honest about what I was doing in town. Yes, I’m here writing a story. No, it’s not about you. Sorry.” She smiled to lessen the blow.
Elle was way past caring. In fact, she was more relieved than anything. It hadn’t been easy being in the spotlight in the first place, and she’d always known no one would want to write a story about her or the town. “What’s the story you’re working on?”
“A loan shark in Chicago. There’s a story going around that he has an interesting way of getting his money back. Someone told me Jessie owed him a lot and I followed him out here.” She spread her hands. “But when I couldn’t find him, I called the mayor and asked to do a story about the town, and he gave me full access.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Listen, I want to catch who ever did this as much, if not more, than you. This shit happens every day and nobody does a thing about it. I was here this morning looking for something, anything that might tie it all together.”
Elle’s nostrils flared. “I don’t even know where to begin.” She stood, dropping the bag of cash at her feet. What she had to say couldn’t be said sitting down. This woman had come into her town and lied to her face. She had led her on and what’s worse, Elle had fallen for it. “I could have you arrested for this.”
Robin leaped to her feet. “For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Obstruction of justice. You had pertinent information regarding an ongoing murder investigation and you kept it to yourself. And then you go trespassing through a crime scene—in that getup.” Elle’s hand swept the length of Robin. “What the hell were you expecting to find? A tea party?”
Robin’s hands latched onto her hips. “Hey, this is what I wear for work, okay? When I packed for this trip, I wasn’t expecting to find the backwoods from Deliverance. And as for withholding information, all I knew was that Jessie might have owed some loan shark in Chicago money. Then when I went to his hotel, he wasn’t there. What was I supposed to say? And if I did tell you this story, it would have biased you against other options.”
“What other options? It’s very obvious Jessie was killed because of this money.”
“Really? Prove it.”
That shut Elle up. She rubbed her forehead. This wasn’t how she was expecting this to go. She collapsed back on the stairs. Robin joined her.
“Look, you’re right. I probably should have shared what I knew. But it doesn’t come naturally. In my profession, it’s best to keep your head down and mouth shut when it comes to the cops. I try to have as few dealings with them as possible. I’m sorry.”
Elle shook her head and laughed, but it was only to mask her frustration. She was on the verge of tears. Every step she took that brought her closer to solving this, also sent her three steps back.
Chapter Twenty-two
EJ opened the door to see Neil, standing on the front stoop. He had two large dark spots at his pits and sweat slicked hair. “You’re a hard person to track down. Where you been all morning?”
EJ shrugged and took a bite of his pizza slice. “I was out. What’s going on?” And then he had a moment of panic. “Is Elle okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s probably back at the station right now. You worried about her?” Neil peered around EJ into the darkened living room.
“Aren’t you?”
“You here alone?” Neil asked.
EJ stuffed the crust into his mouth, making his cheeks bulge and nodded. “What’s going on?” A piece of crust fell from his mouth onto the ground.
“We found something the other night that we need your help with. Elle wanted me to bring you down to the station.”
With his mouth still full so it sounded like he was talking underwater he said, “Why doesn’t she come get me herself? Why’s she sending you?”
Neil wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “It’s not a big deal, we just have a couple questions. You think you can help us out? You can bring the rest of your pizza if you want.”
“Nah, I’m done.” He closed the door behind him without locking it. “What do you need help with? I didn’t see anything the other night.”
Neil led him to the passenger side of the cruiser and opened the door. “No, but you were at the keg party the night Jessie was killed. There might be something you remember that could help us. Trust me, you’re going to be a bigger help than you think.”
EJ shrugged and slid onto the scorching pleather seat of the cruiser. “If I can help, you know I will.”
Neil shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
* * *
“You wouldn’t happen to have any gum, would you?” Elle asked. They had been stuffed into the far corner of the cellar for over two hours, the only place the sun hadn’t invaded.
“Nope, sorry.”
Elle had reached her pain threshold half an hour earlier. She had long ago discarded her utility belt. Just sitting was painful, but this, baking to death, was more than she could take. She needed something to take her mind off her body.
Scattered on the floor around them were several dust-laden shoe boxes. Elle flipped the lid off one at random and pulled out a pile of Penthouse magazines. “Wow, these are old.” Absent of fake breasts and navel piercings, the models stared at the viewer through lowered eyelashes and feathered hair.
“And look at that.” Robin picked up the top magazine and read one of the headings. “Who needs to see naked chicks when you can read the articles?”
Elle couldn’t help herself, she laughed. It shot a spasm of pain through her ribs and up into her neck. “Shit.” She took a deep breath. “I need to stand up.”
Robin stood first, using the wall as support, and offered Elle her arm. Elle’s skin looked even paler in the sunlight. The cuts on her face and neck jumped out in contrast along with escaped pieces of hair plastered to her neck with sweat. Elle pulled at her tie, loosening it until she could slip it over her head. She unbuttoned the top few buttons of her uniform and leaned back against the wall, trying to absorb the cool of the stone.
“I wish we had some water.”
Robin nodded absently, flipping through the magazine. “I think I had this issue when I was a kid. I worry what kind of effect internet porn is having on this generation.” Elle raised her eyebrows, momentarily surprised until Robin said, “They have it so easy. When I was a kid you either had to steal from your dad or sneak downstairs after midnight and hope you didn’t get caught watching fuzzy porn on one of the pay channels. Where’s the ingenuity in typing ‘horny lesbians’ into your web browser?” She caught Elle’s stare. “I guess you had a different plight growing up, huh?”
“I have a younger brother. I’m all too familiar with internet porn.” As much as she wished she weren’t.
Elle tossed a magazine back into the box and toed open the one beside it. Inside was a black keg pump with a deep gouge along the top. She recognized the pump. The last time she’d seen it, she was steering EJ and Dan into the back of her cruiser. When she’d gone back for the keg later that night, the pump was missing. Somehow it had found its way into a shoe box in a hidden room underneath her murder scene.